In an attempt to make the web more secure for its internet users, Google is taking another important step with the launch of Google Chrome 68 for desktops on July 24. On the same day of the launch, Chrome users visiting unencrypted sites will be given warnings. The latest version of Google Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as ‘not secure’. The company had already given web developers more than six months to move their sites to secure connection. The announcement came after an indication for such move back in February, when Google had informed that the version Chrome 68 will mark all HTTP websites as ‘not secure’ starting in July.
Google had last year in January had started the trend of marking HTTP sites as ‘not secure’ along with the Chrome 56 release. But the earlier implementation was limited to web pages requiring certain private information from users which included credit card details. With Chrome 68, as mentioned, the Omnibox on the top will now put up ‘not secure’ label for all HTTP pages, instead of the small ‘I’ icon for HTTP URLs. This label will not just highlight the unsecured nature of the HTTP pages but will also push web admins to preferably choose HTTPS over HTTP technology.
If seen from the user’s perspective, the actual difference between HTTP and HTTPS is that all the traffic coming through HTTPS will be encrypted by default that means its more and better secured from snooping, especially on public networks. It reads as, “For the past several years, we’ve advocated that sites adopt HTTPS encryption for greater security. Within the last year, we’ve also helped users by marking a larger subset of HTTP pages as “not secure”. Beginning in July 2018 with the release of Chrome 68, Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as ‘not secure’.” Chrome offers the facility of policy to control the warning on the domains. During the time of writing, Chrome 68 had not yet been rolled out to desktop users on the stable channel.
If we want to know the statistics behind the number of sites that will be impacted by the change, Google had shared some numbers earlier this year. As per the details by the company, a total of 81 websites out of top 100 sites on the Web now use HTTPS by default. It further added that over 68 percent of all Chrome traffic on both the platforms, Android and Windows and more than 78 percent of Chrome OS and Mac OS now flows over HTTPS.
Google has been working on other fronts as well besides the leveraging of Chrome’s dominant position in the browser market to encourage the switch to HTTPS. The search giant, apart from using HTTPS as a ranking signal, has started indexing HTTPS pages by default in December 2015.
Other companies like Apple have been promoting the use of HTTPS as well in line with Google. The iPhone manufacturer made it mandatory for iOS apps to use secure HTTPS connections in June 2016.
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